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Questions about underground terrain [First Post]

Hi all,

This is my first post, and I'd like to ask a few questions.

Below is a mini-dungeon I created for a campaign. In the room with the red X, I'd like to create a platform. This platform should be natural-looking, not a simple black gradient or a stone platform. Do you have any suggestion on how I can achieve this?

Second, in the area with the green x. I gave the pool a little more depth with an inner shadow, but this looks very unnatural. How can I improve it?

Is there anything else I can do to make the map better?

Thank you very much,
greyface

I built this using gimp. Although saved as a png, I do have a file with the layers still split.

You did a great job with the steps and platforms, however it's a bit harshly lit. I recommend you take a soft fuzzy brush and use the BLUR tool on the gently blur the south side of the black forming the platform and each step. This will help the feature to look realistic. Make sure to keep the northern edge sharp just like you have it.

For the water, I know exactly how you are feeling because I am crap at doing water. I recommend you make a strong edge around the water, by using the following technique: make a new layer over your water layer and call this layer 'pool shadow' or something like. On your pool layer, press alpha to selection (or colour select if you used a layer mask) to select only the area of the pool, then go back to your pool shadow layer - keep this selection throughout. Get a fat black fuzzy brush and draw around the edges quite thickly. Then use the BLUR tool with a HUGE fuzzy brush size to smudge everything, then go around the outside again with a big black blush and then blur it again. Important to do everything by hand to avoid a machine-made look. All your black drawing and smudging should still be restricted to the blue pool area. It should look pretty good now, but if not you can run a gaussian blur and reduce the opacity or duplicate the layer, so that it looks good.